“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Time may show that this session is one of the most significant to date, as far as demonstrations of the authenticity of the Seth Material are concerned. What I have recorded here is done with the utmost effort towards objectivity. Jane, Bill Macdonnel and I agree as to the contents, and our three viewpoints are herein presented. It might be added that Jane and I have no set opinions concerning the Seth Material. We are engaged in it and with it, and we record what we learn. We do not feel that at this stage any other opinion or attitude is needed. We let the material speak for itself.

(Today we had made an initial payment towards acquiring the Birch house, dealt with so extensively in the 65th session. We were both pleased and excited over this. Before the session was due Jane said she felt exhausted and nervous; she reported Seth had been with her at times during the afternoon, “buzzing around,” as she put it, while she thought about the house.

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

In terms of our discussion this is very important. No material object of any kind is formed without the cooperation and without the inner consent of the atoms and molecules that compose it. Form is not thrust upon matter.

(It will be recalled that Seth has given the name of Bill’s entity as Mark.)

(By now Jane’s voice was even lower and stronger than it had been a minute ago. Already the change was more drastic than it had been for many sessions. Her voice did not boom out, and was still recognizable as her own;yet the change was great, and I wondered if it might be even more dramatic. The presence of witnesses usually calls forth a little extra on Seth-Jane’s part as far as voice phenomenon is concerned. The 63rd session, when John Bradley had last been a witness, had also seen some voice changes; but they had been mild compared to this.)

I am going to tie this in with material dealing with the differences that you seem to see in one particular object. This difference is deeper than you imagine. It is not to be explained by saying that one man sees a given object differently than another because of a particular mood that may assail him.

(By referring to the floor plan of our living room at the end of this session, the placement of the three of us can be quickly determined. Seth, making the above statement, gave no suggestions as to what might transpire. Jane’s delivery was unbroken as she paced about the room at a rather fast rate. Her voice was also quite strong and deep, much deeper than usual, yet she spoke without apparent effort or surprise.

(From my writing table, to my right of the entrance to our bath, I could look easily at Bill as he sat in our Kennedy rocker, facing the bath entrance itself from the other side of the same door. As Jane continued her delivery I noticed that Bill was staring quite consistently into the open bath doorway; yet I did not pay great attention to this, taking it somewhat for granted that Seth would use Bill/Mark only as a talking point relating to whatever subject he discussed.)

Incidentally, I would like particular attention for the session, as the material will be of particular value.

(Jane and I of course looked into the doorway but saw nothing. Bill has seen many images and apparitions during his life, and Seth has in past sessions discussed some of them, and their origin, briefly; so Jane and I were not surprised when Bill said he had another sighting.

(For one who felt poorly at the start of the session, Jane now said she felt fine. Seth had “knocked her out quickly.” Our cat, Willy, now became active as break wore on, and as he has done for most recent sessions. Willy began to stalk through the apartment, crying out; it was a cool night and no bugs were to be seen. Willy behaved in quite a scary fashion, looking all about him.

(Here Jane paused beside Bill and picked up the first pen drawing he had made of his sighting of the apparition of Seth.)

(Bill Macdonnel said that the dark bath doorway turned into a foggy white; he then saw the form of Seth’s apparition stand out against this lighter background. The form was mainly a silhouette, he said, without much detail; yet during the first monologue he obtained a strong look or glimpse of the face. The effect was rather like that of a reversed negative. Bill said the face of the apparition was about six feet above floor level.

(It was while we were discussing dimensions that the second part of Seth’s demonstration took place; and again it was without suggestion upon his part, or indeed warning of any kind.

(Jane by now felt very good, fully recovered from her below-par feeling preceding the session. Clowning around, she moved into the doorway, into the exact spot in which, Bill said, Seth’s apparition was appearing. At this time, this moment, Bill said he could not see the image. I was standing beside the rocker Bill occupied, and both of us were watching Jane as she stood smiling and laughing in the bath doorway.

(Bill told Jane and me that the “feeling” of the apparition’s form lingered in the doorway even during break, though in a weaker state. He said that the image would at intervals become quite a bit stronger, so that he could then glimpse details. His drawings of Seth revealed a set of rather chiseled features, with the obvious difference of a very large and high cranium. He said he felt the cranium was gigantic.

(I will have photocopies of the two drawings made for insertion into the carbon copies of this record. My personal feeling is that Seth’s enormous cranium in the drawings is a symbolic one—perhaps one pertaining to Bill’s feeling that Seth possesses greater or different knowledge than we do.

—represents an outward transformation as Mark attempted to construct an accurate replica of material that he sensed with the inner senses, and as such it is the reconstruction of what I am. It represents the appearance that these abilities of mine take when at all closely connected with the physical plane. This does not necessarily mean that in all planes I have the same image.

Generally speaking however, no physical object can be constructed, and no action can occur, without what you are pleased to call suggestion. No action and no material object can be perceived without inner consent and willingness. Behind every action and every construction there is indeed what you are pleased to call suggestion.

(Bill Macdonnel was again staring into the doorway to the bath, making additions to his second drawing of Seth’s apparition.)

(Sam Levine knows about Seth but has never attended a session. He has been invited to. He has expressed neither belief nor disbelief; he has also listened to part of the tape recording we made of Jane when delivering the 25th session. See page 183. Someday Jane and I intend to put the pressure on Sam and make him attend a session, no matter how busy he is. [Session 25 is in Vol. 1.])

The material did not come through clearly because the man who sought to come through has not been trained enough to perform the particular task which he set himself.

(According to Seth then, Jane and I used our combined psychic strength or force to pull the bolt back. I remember finding the door, which was very heavy and thick, slightly ajar. This was accounted for to our satisfaction at the time of our second visit; trying to shoot the bolt from inside the porch, Jane and I found we had to exert considerable pressure against the door in order to line the bolt up with the door frame; and once shut the door was exceedingly sturdy. If Jane and I used psychic strength to open this door, it can be safely stated that the force required and exerted was considerable.)

This is a direct result of the results of inner expectations, and begins to yield its fruits. Changes in your living rhythm will no longer confront you in terms of either bitterness, anger or regret, for you are creating a more constructive material and psychic environment.

(See the 56th session, page 110, for the full material on Bill’s recent illness. Now, again, Jane picked up Bill’s second drawing; she spoke directly to him.)

(At Seth’s suggestion, I again quizzed Bill on his sighting of Seth’s image; Bill verified the notes I had already taken and have included in this record. Once again he emphasized the great rise of the cranium of the image.

(“Good night, Seth.”

(End at 11:13. Jane was dissociated as usual. She said this was one of the occasions when Seth could have gone on for hours; he felt fine and was in a rare mood. Also, Jane said Seth had played a trick on her during the last delivery: He had not let her approach my writing table, where she usually let her cigarettes lay, and she had been unable to smoke.

(We were discussing the evening’s material when I happened to remark that it seemed as though a performer on television, for example, when viewed by others, might be created by millions of viewers, many of whom would be independent of each other as far as our conception of distance is concerned; yet all the images so created would overlap enough to be identifiable as the one performer.

(Jane was sitting across from me at the table. As soon as I had my say she abruptly began to dictate again. Her voice was as deep as ever. She got up, walked over to the divan, and in a most masculine gesture proceeded to squat on one arm of the divan, leaning forward with her hands on her knees. I had never seen her use this gesture before. But there she sat through all of the following material. Her eyes were very dark.)

(The following reference by Seth to the mixing of the papers stems from the fact that in reading back some of the notes of the session to Jane and Bill aloud, I had gotten them out of sequence; for a minute or so I had not realized what had happened, and the material had sounded oddly jumbled.)

(Jane grinned broadly and pointed at me from her perch on the arm of the couch. I take the term old landowner as another of Seth’s references to my life in Denmark in the 1600’s; at that time I owned much land.)

(For a full explanation of the implications above, see the 46th session, page 35. The barn episode, taking place in the town of Triev, Denmark, involved Jane, Bill, Seth and me.

(It might be added here that this is the session in which Seth refers in a little more detail to Bill’s perception of apparitions, and the mechanics involved. Therefore the 46th session is closely related to this one in that respect.)

There are few evenings when I have felt so lighthearted, and we will have an evening that will make up for all the heavy-handed sobriety which I am forced to use to get important material through your heads.

(End at 11:59. Jane was dissociated as usual. She felt much better, she said, than she had before the session began. Seth was full of hell, Jane said; he really enjoyed himself giving the session; and the concept of his enjoyment as she sensed it within was, in turn, enjoyable and “funny” to her.

(My writing hand was tired, even with Seth’s help. I asked Bill to make a drawing of any materialization Seth might perform for him on his trip.

(This reproduction, combining the two drawings Bill MacDonnel made of the apparition he saw in the 68th Session, was published in 1970 by Prentice-Hall, Inc., in Jane’s The Seth Material. Bill’s first drawing is the smaller of the two.)